Fifteen Stars
by Hikari897
Summary: Fourteen talented students and one from the reserve course all fell into despair. Many an outsider looked back and wondered: "How?" One chapter per character. Contains major spoilers for SDR2. In-Progress.
1. Kazuichi Souda

_A/N: Reviews will be greatly appreciated and reviewers will receive virtual chocolate if they so desire._

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Chapter One: Kazuichi Souda

Souda is eight years old and his father is showing him how to build a bike from pre-made parts. He's only been watching for a few hours and he's already sure he could it himself. But he bites into his bottom lip and waits for his father to finish up the tutorial; he knows Dad doesn't like to be interrupted. So he just stares at all those parts, who practically screaming at him to snatch them up and make them into something more than a scrap.

He sneaks into the workroom to try it himself the next day. He's done with his first bike by noon and proudly displays it. His mother smiles and pats his hair, saying he's so smart to learn so fast. When she leaves, Souda turns to Dad, smile on his face and ready for praise.

It vanishes the instant he sees Dad's expression. His father is glaring, his mouth drawn into a snarl.

"Why did you touch my stuff, you little brat? You got the chain all wrong too! That stuff costs money!" Souda drops to the ground and covers his head before the blow strikes him, sending him sprawling onto his side.

It takes another two tries before he gets the process right. The purple and black bruise on his cheek hurts when he bumps it for a week.

Souda is twelve years old and he hates school. He can't speak like the other students do. He finds himself with a mouth that jumbles words and hands that shake. Everywhere he goes, Souda is sure he's hearing them whisper about "_that wimpy emotional baby that snuck in from the preschool"_ and watches as they chuckle.

He drops his gaze to glare at the ground and when he gets home, he immerses himself in his work. His father rarely drops by, and when he does it's to ask if he's made something they can sell. Other times, Souda avoids him. There are many new bruises up and down his arms from when he fails to stay far away from the man.

Souda is thirteen and he's cut school for the first time. He hasn't seen father this mad since he accidentally blowtorched a fender into uselessness. The beating from that had left a black and blue array down his back that hurt when he touched it. It hurt right then as he brushed against the back of the tiny chair in the principal's office. That incident had only been a week ago, after all.

Now Father is livid and the anger in his eyes promises pain when they're away from the prying eyes of school officals. Souda listens with quiet fear as the principle explains that he'll be suspended if he cuts again, and Souda just nods.

Souda is in high school and he's acutely aware that his attempt at change isn't working. Fingers are pointed as his classmates ask if that pink-haired, sharp-toothed teen is the same Souda from middle-school and he insists that he's someone else. Someone sniggers and says he's a bad liar.

Later during lunch, someone jabs him in the side when he's not looking. He screams and everyone laughs.

At home, he builds a tiny, tiny rocket, and watches with a dark bags under his eyes as it flies over his house. From somewhere inside the home, father yells that whatever that infernal sound is, it better stop really fast or he's going to regret being born. Souda tries not to wonder if he already does as he collects the little rocket and hurries inside.

Nothing changes. The endless cycle of heartless students and a heartless father and no one to appreciate the increasingly complicated machines he was making never ends. Souda cuts more classes. He locks himself away with nothing but mechanics after particularly harsh words or beatings.

Day after day after day after day after day.

Souda is eighteen and when Junko Enoshima asks him to build a rocket for a person to ride up and abruptly, quickly, fatally back down to the earth, he accepts.


	2. Mikan Tsumiki

Chapter Two: Mikan Tsumiki

There's water dripping down her back. Her hair is plastered against her face and grips her skin, not unlike the hand clenched around her wrist. It's fingernails are digging into her skin, and she can't do anything in her defense but whimper.

"Ahah! What a crybaby!" Tsumiki isn't even sure who it is who's laughing now; after a while, the voices of her tormentors began to sound alike. They weren't very creative and tended to echo each others' insults and names for her. She shudders and tries to pull her hand away, to hug against her chest. Her captor loosens their grip, but draws back their foot. It connects savagely with her side a moment later. Tsumiki yelps. In response, another water bottle is dumped over her.

"Why don't you crawl around like a dog, 'miki? Bark a little!"

It's three hours before she gets away from them. Her clothes are soaked, her skin is riddled by fingernail scratches, and she's never felt so low in her life. She draws her arm up against her chest and holds them against her chest, before covering her face in her hands.

She runs that way, fingers blinding her vision, the entire way back to her room. She collapses onto the bed and cries there for a long while. Tsumiki had known the moment that the group of girls appeared, twisted smiles on their faces, exactly what was going to happen and she's glad to be away.

They always wanted the strangest things. They delighted in watching her cry. Whatever made them happy. It was better than having them hate her, better than being ignored. Everything was better than being ignored. Living her life with no one ever acknowledging her being; at least they spoke to her, however mean their words! By snatching her arms, they validated her existence. Because they laughed at her crumbled form, she continued to exist. That was enough of a life for her. Like they always said, she didn't deserve any more.

It makes them happy, too. It keeps them from hating her.

"Right? Right?" Tsumiki cries to the air, before rolling over in a vain attempt at sleep.

The cycle continues. Every day people do the same things to her. At the end of each cycle of day and night, she crawls back to safety. But safety has no people, it's all loneliness, and she needs someone, anyone, and so she leaves solitude every morning.

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One day, her room's solitude is broken. Tsumiki's clothes has rips in them, and her face is soaked by another day's tears. The chants of "pig" "animal" and "bitch" echo in her ears. She pushes open her door with a shaky hand, only to recoil back in fear against the far wall.

There is someone sitting on her bed. A girl.

"Tsumiki, why don't we talk?"

Tsumiki walks over, legs shaking madly the entire way, and sits on the bed next to the girl.

"Some people did more mean things to you today, didn't they?" The girl asks after a moment. Tsumiki watches as the girl's eyes look her over, before stammering out a reply.

"T-They were just having fun." Tsumiki insists, wringing her hands together.

"You must feel terrible. So very terrible. Like your insides are being twisted all around. Don't you?"

Tsumiki isn't sure what to make of this statement. But she nods.

"You're despairing, aren't you? You have such a despair filled life!"

Tsumiki nods again and adjusts her gaze on the ground. It was just another person who wanted someone to be lesser than them–

"I like you a lot, Tsumiki! You have a lot of despair!"

Tsumiki's eyes go wide. She doesn't understand and her gaze locks with the strange girl, who has a wide smile spreading on her face.

"Y-You like me?"

"We should be friends. I'm jealous of you! You get to experience so much despair. You should stay with me. The world needs more despairing people!"

The girl says more than that, but all Tsumiki hears is "I'm jealous." Someone, someone thought there was something, however tiny, that was desirable?

"I-I-I'd love to stay with you!"

Junko Enoshima smiles.

* * *

Junko is Tsumiki's first "friend." She first thinks the proposition was a joke - it's happened to her before plenty of times. But Junko show's up at her door in the morning and they go to classes together. Junko describes her despairs, Tusmiki describe hers, and she can't help but feel something warm inside her chest at the look of rapt attention her new friend has as she describes the latest things her tormentors have thought up.

Junko invites her along to a lot of things, unlike anyone else before. They see horror movies. Tsumiki watches as Junko sprays graffiti all about their shared despair on the walls. When Junko suggests they do something awful to their tormentors, a brimming, burning desire strikes her, and she has the most fun of her life.

After that event, Mikan Tsumiki is almost never seen anywhere but Junko Enoshima's side.

"J-J-Junko?"

"Yes, my favorite little despairing girl?"

The word 'favorite' makes a little blush appear on Tsumiki's face.

"You're my m-most b-b-belov- my f-f-favorite person." She manages to say. Junko gives her another one of those smiles that makes Tsumiki feel like the luckiest person in the world.

They attack a hope-filled student to celebrate.


	3. Teruteru Hanamura

_A/N This is where I start to slip towards fanon. The majority of the sdr2 cast simply don't have their reasons for falling to despair mentioned, so I have to take my best guess. Regardless, I hope you enjoy._

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Chapter Three: Teruteru Hanamura

Hanamura has always liked girls. He's always liked girls_ a lot._

Today was his first time trying to ask one out, now that he's gotten over the cooties. He's eleven. He's crying in his room because the girl spit it at him and called him a creep. He only said she had nice eyes!

Mother comes into the room and rubs his backs he cries. Hanamura hiccups and, after a bit of prompting, tells her all about the mean girl. He says he didn't mean to creep her out. Mother shakes her head and says the girl must still believe in cooties. Hanamura likes his explanation. He must just be more grown up than her.

An hour later, he's laughing as he cuts up veggies in the kitchen, already over the girl and thinking about the others in his class. Mother smiles.

This turns out to be a frequent event, though the crying part fades out as he grows older. As school days pass by, Hanamura finds himself faced with what appears to be the entirety of the female teenage population sneering at him.

"I'm impressed they all still believe in cooties." His mother cities their running joke as they prepare dinner, and Hanamura gives an obligatory laugh. They always make supper for the family; it's been a running tradition since he was old enough to hold a knife.

Hanamura's father dies when he's fourteen. Mother sits across from him at the dinner table as they both try not to look at the empty side of the table where his father used to it. Father always loved their cooking and filled his wife and son up with praise after every meal, regardless of how well it turned out.

That night, the food tastes bland.

He stays home from school the next morning. Mother holds him in her arms and they cry.

Several days and many more tears later, dinner begins to have a little taste again, and they smile faintly at each other.

Even some of the girls at school take a bit of pity on him, pity that promptly vanishes when he asks for a date. Hanamura isn't terribly surprised.

Girls get more vicious with highschool. Hanamura regularly complains that he can barely say a word about them without being verbally attacked; they regularly complain that he's a pervert who won't leave them alone. At that point, it's relatively unsure who, if either or both, is more accurate.

What is true is that their complaints seem to come when he's actually not paying attention. When he leaves them alone, a group of them cast reminders of their presence back at him like bait on a line. It's a game; make Hanamura say something and giggle about it, before sneering at him. Hanamura plays along.

He's happiest at home. Mother is, as always, the only female he can talk to. She listens to every word he says, and understands them all as best Hanamura can tell. They make enough food for a small country together, they sell it, they get by doing what they love. Regardless of his school life, the time away makes it worth it.

But also as he grows older, Hanamura begins to see the toll his father's death is taking on Mother. She works harder to pay the bills, to keep the house clean, to keep him happy; Hanamura does his best to help, but he's just a teenager and she's a mother with years of experience. His efforts don't accomplish much. She waves off his concern with another smile, and Hanamura watches as she grows more frail.

He began to think his worries were unfounded. She always greeted him as he came home every day, offered a hug for all his problems, laughed at his jokes. She was very much there and very much alive.

Until she wasn't.

He gets the call during fourth period math. A teacher pulles him out the room and gives him the news. His mother collapsed shopping. She was rushed to the hospital.

Hanamura runs out of Hope's Peak hoping with all his might that Mother will be okay.

She's dead by the time he arrives.

"Ew, get away you pig."

Hanamura scowls but lets the female flee. He's redoubled his efforts to get a girlfriend, some other figure in his life, but he's failing worse than ever. It seems now it's not just a select group of females but instead the entire school that hates him.

He avoids looking at every restaurant around on the way home, feeling sick to his stomach. He's felt that way for months now, ever since Mother died.

At his empty house, Hanamura eats take-out from the fridge. It tastes bland.

He doesn't think it will ever taste good again.

When he meets others who feel the same way as him, like the world stole away the precious things they had, Hanamura joins them. The world seems pretty bland to them as well.


End file.
